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Topic: Vader/C-3PO (Read 2213 times)

Reading alot of reviews for ROTS and how loose ends are tied up led me to this question. Why did Vader make no mention of 3PO's existence in ESB? Or make himself aware to 3PO. He built him, had seen him in his gold plating in ROTS and was familiar with the voice. Did he choose to ignore him? Were there similar (if not identical protocol droids with that speech pattern) droids throughout the galaxy. You think he may of wanted him back as some type of trophy since he built him. Or did Vader just simply forget most of his past.

EU answer: In an issue of Tales, they actually answered this question. After 3PO was blown up by stormtroopers, the ugnaughts were going to melt him. Vader stopped this and took 3PO. He then flashes back to his childhood and reminisces about the good times he and 3PO had. Vader actually gives 3PO back to the Ugnaughts, thus allowing Chewie to find him and put him back together. Nobody saw Vader with 3PO obviously. He didn't want no one to see him "crying" like a little bitch over a protocol droid. Can you imagine that, big bad Vader looking like a pansy in front of his troops.

Is there a good moment in the trilogy where Vader gets a really good look at 3PO?

On the Death Star, he's busy fighting Ben and probably doesn't notice him.

On Bespin, 3PO is missing by the dinner scene. It's really only during the carbon freeze that Vader is around 3PO. With all that was going on, maybe he didn't get a good look since 3PO was "exploded" at that point.

Maybe Vader was pre-occupied with Luke and never gave the droid a 2nd thought assuming 3PO was lost on Mustafar or Coruscant...

Other than the carbon freezing where Threepio is in pieces, are the two ever on screen together? I can't remember a time. (edit - um .. . yeah. .Jeff said this while I was typing.)

Besides, I don't get why people worry about these things. Why didn't Obi Wan recognize R2? Why didn't Vader recognize Threepio? It's my impression that droids are as common as household appliances. Would you recognize your old dishwasher 25 years later?

There are waaaayyy bigger continuity issues on the plate for this one to worry me much.

« Last Edit: May 11, 2005, 04:25 PM by name »

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This sticker is dangerous and inconvenient, but I do love Fig Newtons.

There's the trick in doing three and then going back for three prequels. No matter how hard you try or how many people you have working for you, it's just not going to measure up to a pile of geeks analyzing every little thing.

I've been hoping that the answer to this is somehow forthcoming in ROTS, some great catastrophic mindwipe of both Vader and to a lesser extent, Obi. It will seem contrived regardless of what it is, but I'd like to find out how they resolve it, if they do.

Like I said, for me, I'll go with the "Vader never got a good look at 3PO" to solve that one.

Then, I'll go with "Obi-Wan is a liar, from a certain point of view" to solve the Obi-Wan/R2 problem.

I guess we can just say that Obi-Wan was being cautious when he said he didn't remember R2 and 3PO. He sure as hell wasn't going to tell Luke that the droids once belonged to his real parents or that this 3PO unit was built by Darth Vader himself...

Obi-Wan seemed to work off a "need to know" basis when revealing info to Luke, so I'll just assume that's why he pretended not to know the droids...

I know this wasn't intentional on the film makers part, but one of my favorate speculative observations is that the reason why Vader prevented Boba Fett from shooting Chewie is because Chewie was carring 3PO.

I just don't really care for the fact that "Vader" made C-3PO at all. I still think that whole plot point is lame. But yeah, it's fun to pretend that's why Vader kept Boba from taking a shot at Chewie in the chamber. Doubtful the real reason though, since Lucas obviously didn't have the foresight at that point to know of their future (past) relationship...

He sure as hell wasn't going to tell Luke that the droids once belonged to his real parents or that this 3PO unit was built by Darth Vader himself...

Obi Wan and 3PO were briefly on screen together in ROTS. They never even spoke on screen. The only opportunity they would have had to get to know each other was when they were flying to Polis Massa, and I bet they were only concerned about Padme's well being at the time. Plus, there are lots of gold plated protocol droids in the galaxy.

Even though all characters seem to tumble over each other during the whole of SW and keep running into each other, we never ever see another Protocol Droid identical to 3PO, nor an astromech identical to R2.

We've seen a chrome, a white and a red 3PO, but the only golden one is 3PO. Also, his voice is very unique compared to those other ones.

We've also seen many different astromecyhs, but none were identical to R2 in every bit.

Vader, even glancing over to 3PO, or especially hearing his voice, should have a moment of recognition, not neccesarily that that is HIS 3PO, but at least something.

But, it could very well be that, like his true name, that droid he made as a kid has no meaning for him anymore.